Access Gmail Offline In Chrome Via Gmail Offline App

byarupchouonSeptember 1, 2011

In a move which I believe will propel the sales of ChromeBooks, users of Chrome browser now will be able to access Gmail even when they are not connected to the internet. Not only this, similar offline capabilities for Docs and Calendar are expected to arrive in coming weeks. For using Gmail and other facilities offline, users need to first install separate individual offline-access apps from the Chrome Web store and add them to their Chrome browser. While the Gmail app is known as Gmail Offline, Docs and Calendar will have their separate offline access apps.

Before this change, users could access Gmail and other services of Google only when they were connected to the internet. Users can read and write an email when they are offline. They can also see as well as edit calendars offline. Though offline editing of Google Docs does not work as of now, users can view their spreadsheets offline. The changes were anticipated ever since Google came up with ChromeBooks during its I/O conference held in May.

Boost To ChromeBooks

With offline capabilities, ChromeBooks will get a major push. With the capabilities, users can use ChromeBooks to carry out their work even when they are not connected to the internet. Notably Google has been pushing ChromeBooks as an substitute to laptops running on Windows. Once you install the applications, an icon will be created on the interface of the Chrome browser which will launch them when you are not online. The interface of the Gmail app will be different from Gmail’s web interface.

Earlier, one could access these services offline by using Gears plug-in. But Gears has been removed by Google and the focus is now on HTML5 to provide offline access to web applications. Google also plans to provide offline capabilities to more of its web apps and this will surely play an important role in enhancing the popularity of the Chrome browser.